


You're So Oblivious

by way_too_many_fandoms



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character's Name Spelled as Jäger, German Eren Yeager, Levi is a teacher, M/M, Oblivious Armin Arlert, Oblivious Eren Yeager, Writer Eren Yeager, that's just important to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29008053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/way_too_many_fandoms/pseuds/way_too_many_fandoms
Summary: Armin has a crush on his best friend Eren, he doesn't want to ruin their friendship so he keeps it to himself. But everyone already knows.
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Comments: 3
Kudos: 135





	You're So Oblivious

**Author's Note:**

> the fandom needs some more eremin love so I'm here to contribute

Eren was sitting in a carriage next to an unknown man. Historia was there, but she had stayed silent the entire time, looking down at the ground with a sad look in her eye. He would have scoffed if it wasn’t for the metal bar in his mouth. This was terrifying, part of him knew that he was getting taken to his death, he wasn’t going to make it back to the scouts this time around. 

If only he could draw some blood and transform, but his hands were shackled together behind him. He wasn’t going to be able to. 

It felt like hours had passed as he sat in the carriage, listening to the sound of horse hooves and the clatter of the wheels. Eren knew that he needed to leave right now, but he knew that every movement he made was being strictly monitored. 

Eren would have to wait for the scouts to find him, which was something he absolutely didn’t want to have to do. He wasn’t a damsel in distress goddamnit, no matter how many times Jean said it. 

The noise began to fade and his vision became blurrier, the picture before him wasn’t as clear as before and that pissed him off. “Shit!” 

*****************

“Eren!” A hand was on his shoulder shaking him back and forth in his plastic seat. Eren blinked his eyes some, slowly leaving his fantasy world and coming back to the real one. He must have spaced out during class again, well at least he didn’t fall asleep this time. He immediately dove into his backpack to search for one specific notebook.

“Armin where’s my notebook?” He knew that Armin would know exactly which one he was talking about. It was his most used one, it had quick sketches and dozens of pages of writing. 

The blond in question raised a thoroughly ‘loved’ notebook, “You left it at my place again,” he placed it on the brunette’s desk, “Should probably stop doing that.”

Eren rolled his eyes and opened the book to the next available page. He started to write out what he had just envisioned, it was part of the most recent part of his story. He didn’t have all the details fleshed out quite yet but he was getting there. He described exactly what he had imagined so that it would make drawing it all out later much easier. 

Armin pulled up a chair and leaned on the other’s desk, “What are you writing about now?” It was common knowledge by this point that Eren was fully invested in some sort of story. He never told anyone all the details about it, only that it was set in a dystopian world with these things called titans. Nobody ever really questioned it, just writing it off as some other weird thing that the boy did. He had started it back in year eight and hadn’t stopped since.

Armin and Mikasa were surprised that he had stuck with it for so long. Whenever he tried to look through the notebook it made absolutely no sense to him, there was German thrown into it and the handwriting was severely worse than any of his assignments. Even if he did look through the notebook more Armin knew that he wouldn’t be able to read it. 

Eren finally ended his frantic scribbling and closed the notebook. He tossed the book back into his bag and zipped it up, turning his attention back to his best friend. “Well if you must know I’m trying to figure out the next chapter to my webcomic.” 

Armin let him talk about it for a while, he loved listening to the other boy talk so intensely about his project. He loved the smile that Eren had whenever he got to tell people about his webcomic, normally he kept it mostly to himself but after so many years of wondering what he was writing about he had finally come clean about it all.

The comic had a bunch of people from their school, Eren had started it soon after he immigrated from Germany. Surprisingly he didn’t talk to many people at first and the boy had an overactive imagination, so he had created his own little world. The story was one of the darkest things that Armin had ever read, once he had persuaded Eren to show him the finished webcomic, and he had asked if the other boy was alright. How did he ever come up with something as horrifying as this? 

It was also a little odd seeing himself drawn as this soldier character, well they all were soldiers, but it was so much different than he was. Armin wasn’t the most confident person but the Armin in the comic was more so, he was everything that Armin wished he could be. He didn’t know how Eren had made him out to be like that. Many of the characters' personalities were similar to their real-life counterparts. Though Eren did have a bad habit of killing people off, which was also disturbing.

The first person that Eren had gruesomely killed from their friend group was Marco Bodt, he was a nice person so Armin had been confused when he had read that he died in the comic. He would have expected Eren to kill off someone like Jean, who was always butting heads with the boy. Apparently, it was because Marco had had a bad case of the flu towards the end of year nine and was out for two weeks, so Eren had decided to “joke” about it in the webcomic. Armin had decided that day that Eren had a weird sense of humor. At least Marco didn’t take offense to it. 

A smile graced Armin’s lips as he listened to Eren talk about his comic, he had learned that the boy wanted to be an actual comic artist when he was older but his parents didn’t support that. They had wanted him to become something practical like a doctor, or something of that sort. Eren never listened though and pursued his dream.

Armin loved him for that. Well, he loved everything about Eren, he was perfect. The way that Eren had stood up for him when he was getting bullied, going as far as to fight the bullies off, was amazing. He was an overall nice guy, trying a little too hard to act like a bad boy but Armin found it endearing. It was a plus that he was so stupidly beautiful. His teal eyes, sometimes they looked more green, and other times they looked a stunning shade of blue. He had started to grow his hair out some and it was slowly inching down his neck. Eren was so freaking attractive that sometimes Armin couldn’t help but stare. 

Which was exactly what he was doing now, at first Eren hadn’t noticed because he was so entrapped with telling his friend about the newest part of his comic but as he finished his rant he saw that the other was dazing. He laughed a little, Armin had just brought him back to reality now he would need to do the same.

“You alright Ar?” Fuck, there was that nickname, it always made him blush uncontrollably. 

“Uh, y-yeah I’m, I’m fine,” there was a bell signaling that break was over, Armin took a deep breath to calm himself. “The chapter sounds interesting. Can I read it when you’re done?” 

The answer was always the same but he asked every single time, “Of course,” and he smiled all over again. Armin loved reading Eren’s work, sure at times it was a bit graphic but he still enjoyed it. He also loved how the boy drew everyone, it was so detailed, the ways that he was able to make them so dynamic, and then coming up with the titan designs and 3DMG was insane. 

Armin was completely smitten by the artistic boy, but he couldn’t say a thing. 

Eren was straight, he knew that much, never said anything about guys or other genders besides girls. At first, it was Annie, then it was Ymir until he found out she was a lesbian, Historia, and a long list of other girls. Armin heard about each and every single one, he just grinned and pretended like his heart wasn’t shattering. 

Recently though Eren hadn’t been talking about any of his crushes, which was odd, but Armin just took as nobody had piqued his interest as of late. That had to be the only explanation, but he would start talking about another girl again in no time so Armin just had to take what precious little time he had to enjoy not having to listen to that. 

He did love Eren but having to constantly hear about other people that he liked was hell, “Arlert!” Armin was snapped out of his thoughts by his teacher, Levi. When he had started the year he had addressed the man as Mr. Ackermann, much like one does when speaking to a teacher. That was shut down pretty quickly though as they all found out that he held a strong dislike towards his surname, so they addressed him as Mr. Levi. It was really weird at first but after a few months they all seemed to get used to it, Levi would let them know if they messed up. Those times were never fun. “I would recommend that you pay attention while you’re in my class.”

Armin frantically nodded, yeah his teacher was terrifying but he knew deep down that Levi did care for his students. It was just hidden under all the anger and stone-cold expressions. He returned to his notes, history class was interesting after all, definitely something that he wanted to learn more about. 

He turned his head just a little to see that Eren was doodling his comic designs in the margins of his notes, Armin chuckled quietly. Eren was obsessed with his webcomic. If only his parents supported him in his endeavors, maybe then he could become famous for it or something. Not that he wasn’t already, the webcomic had quite the following, which surprised the two of them. Eren had run over to Armin’s house the day he found out that the comic had reached a thousand reads, he was practically beaming the entire day. Armin wouldn’t forget how the boy had wrapped him in a warm hug and held him close for what felt like hours. He replayed that memory quite frequently. 

Nobody needed to know that though.

The class went by as normal, thankfully Jean had kept his mouth shut so Eren didn’t go off at him like yesterday, they probably would get in a fight though, hopefully not. It wasn’t like Armin wanted to help Eren patch himself up, that would be weird. 

The rest of the day passed with little to no wrongdoings, just another day of school. Armin, Eren, and Mikasa had planned to hang out after but then Eren had dipped, which made Armin a bit upset. He was looking forward to it, it wasn’t even like the other boy had given a good excuse. He said he was going to “study” but everyone knew that Eren Jäger didn’t study unless it was necessary, which it wasn’t today. Armin just sighed and went along with it, it seemed like it was just going to be him and Mikasa today. That wasn’t unheard of it was just always more likely that they hung out in a trio. At least Mikasa didn’t drop him. 

They walked together to Armin’s house, it wasn’t very far away. He had lived with his grandfather ever since his parents had died in a car crash years back, at least he and Mikasa were similar in that sense. Sort of technically orphans. They made idle conversation as they walked down the streets, the farther they got away from the highschool the fewer people there. Armin’s place wasn’t in the most populated area which was a plus in his eyes, that just meant that there were fewer bullies. The two made their way up to Armin’s room, he said hello to his grandpa and kicked off his shoes along the way. Mikasa did the same but gently placed her shoes down, always having better manners than Eren and Armin. 

The first thing they did was work on some homework, normally the three friends would work together on history since Levi always made the homework more difficult than it needed to be. Armin also needed help when it came to some other subjects, it was a system that they had created back in middle school when they all became friends, the unstoppable trio. If he was being honest Eren probably wouldn’t be able to maintain the grades that he had if he didn’t have Mikasa and Armin to help him since he was always too wrapped up with writing, drawing, and editing his comic. That was fine though because the three of them would stick together no matter what. 

After an hour or two, Armin and Mikasa had finished their homework though and the conversation had taken a different turn, “When are you going to tell my brother you like him?” 

Armin had bolted up from where he was sitting, blush prominent all over his face. “W-what?!” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, no way was Mikasa talking about his secret crush, he hadn’t told a single soul. How had she figured it out? “What um what crush?” That was a stupid question and he knew it, his earlier response had already solidified that he most definitely had a crush on Eren. Armin was screwed. 

Mikasa still looked as calm and collected as ever, damn that, this was a very stressful situation and she had no right to act like she hadn’t just fried his brains. “It’s quite obvious, so, when are you going to tell him?”

Armin sighed and looked down at his hands. “Am I that obvious?” 

Mikasa chuckled a little, it was always an odd occurrence when she laughed, it wasn’t something that many people heard. “I think everyone knows by this point, besides Eren of course.” 

That messed up his mind again, “Everyone knows?” 

“Yep.”

“How?!” He needed to fix this right now, tell everyone that they were delusional and there was no way that he was in love with his best friend. Though that would be lying and he hated lying to his friends. But how had they all figured it out, he made sure to be as inconspicuous as possible. 

Mikasa closed up her textbooks and started putting them into her bag, “You aren’t as subtle as you think. All the times that you get flustered when you’re talking to him or heaven forbid he calls you Ar. Your whole face goes red. You’re not subtle.” 

Armin fell back onto the bed, this was it, he was going to die right on the spot. Everyone knew that he loved Eren, that’s just fantastic. “Why didn’t anyone tell me! And what do you mean that Eren doesn’t know, he’s probably just lying because it makes him uncomfortable or something.” 

This was hell, Armin had spent all these years hiding his crush from his best friend but Eren probably knew the entire time and just didn’t want him to feel bad. 

Mikasa pulled him back up and made him look her in the eye, “Do you honestly think that any of that is true, that Eren would think any of that?!” 

This was rearing off into territory that he didn’t want to deal with, yes Eren was a nice person, he was great and everything that anyone could ever want. That’s why he fell for the other boy after all. But sometimes good people weren’t as good as you originally thought, he hoped that Eren wouldn’t be like that but you could never be too sure, Armin had met people like that in the past. “I don’t know? I guess, I just…” He took a deep breath, “I just don’t want him to hate me over something like that. It would be stupid to ruin our entire friendship over a stupid little crush.” 

Mikasa looked him dead in the eye, it was terrifying every time, she was quite intimidating when she wanted to be. “You can’t keep lying to yourself, everyone knows it’s more than that.” 

Armin wanted to scream or cry or some combination of that. This wasn’t how today was supposed to go, if Eren would have just come to his house today none of this would have happened. Mikasa wouldn’t have started asking all of those questions. “I know okay!” 

The room went quiet, Armin could hear his grandfather walk around downstairs. He tried to figure out all of his thoughts, tried to piece everything together. “I’m sorry for asking,” Mikasa turned around and went back to her things.

Armin had messed up and he knew it, “No, I’m sorry for yelling. You’re right, and I hate it. I’m just scared of what he’ll say you know?” 

Mikasa smiled a little, she had secrets and Armin knew it. He would never figure them out though. “I’m still sorry though, I shouldn’t have pushed. The two of us have known Eren for years, he wouldn’t let this ruin the two of your friendship. You mean too much to him.”

Armin looked down at his hands, he didn’t know what to do, should he tell Eren and risk it all? Would Mikasa be right, a little voice in the back of his head told him to trust her. “I guess you’re right.” 

“So you’ll tell him?”

A blush covered his face again, “I don’t think I’m ready yet.” 

Armin hated how scared he was about all of this. The days passed on, Eren still wasn’t hanging out with them, always making stupid excuses. It pissed him off. Eren and he only talked during school but even then it seemed like the green-eyed boy was distracted with his thoughts. That wasn’t an odd occurrence but the fact that it was happening more and more so was worrying. His grandfather had begun to ask him what happened to Eren since he hadn’t seen the boy in a while, that was when it hit Armin that it had been a very long time since the other had stepped foot in his house. 

The days continued to pass, Eren seemed more and more distant as the time went on. Armin just wanted to pull him aside during lunch or break one day and ask what the hell was going on. This wasn’t like him at all, he never acted like this. If he was feeling bad he went to Armin, if his dad was being stupid again he went to Armin, he always went to Armin because they were best friends that stayed together no matter what. 

It was such a total personality shift that Armin didn’t even know what to do, everything was going wrong and he didn’t know how to fix it. His life was becoming a total nightmare. Armin was overthinking right now but he just couldn’t stop. Eren and he had been friends for years so having something like this happen was sucky, to say the least. 

They hung out nearly every day, talked every day, and now they weren’t. Eren was avoiding him like the plague and it was awful. Armin drifted through his classes, barely being able to pay attention because his mind was constantly worried about what Eren was thinking about. He had gotten scolded many times while sitting in his history class. It didn’t help that the boy that was constantly on his mind was sitting two feet away from him. 

Armin went home every day, went through the motions of finishing his homework, and then trying to find out what to do with the rest of the day. He and Mikasa only talked so much when Eren wasn’t there and he just wasn’t very close with the other people in his class. He would talk to Marco but then Jean would probably come to, something that could always go wrong. Hanging out with Annie turned awkward after too long. He just couldn’t hang out with anyone if he wasn’t with Eren, it got awkward. 

He was sitting in his bed, switching mindlessly between Twitter, Tumblr, and Youtube, his brain felt like it was on autopilot. He couldn’t focus on anything to save his life. All Armin could think about was why in the hell Eren was avoiding him. Mikasa wasn’t a big help either, he hoped that she hadn’t said anything to the other boy about his crush. Was that breaking some sort of friendship code? She wouldn’t tell Eren that he had a crush on him, right? If Mikasa did, then he was completely screwed. 

Maybe that was why Eren was avoiding him because Mikasa had told her brother everything. Shit. 

Armin dropped his phone on his bed, no, there is no way that she told him. If she did then Eren and Armin’s friendship was over, Eren was disgusted with him. He couldn’t hang out with someone that had a gross crush on him, would he just have to forget their entire friendship. All of those years, everything was over. 

His mind went back to one of the most pivotal moments of their friendship, the terrible night that Armin had found out that his parents had died. Armin had been 11 and Eren was new to the school district. They hadn’t been friends for that long, only a few months. Something terrible like this wasn’t something that normally got talked about really soon into a friendship. But they did, and Eren was there for it all. Hugging Armin as he cried for hours, letting the boy stay with him for a couple of days. That was the time that their friendship took a turn, they were very close after spending nearly every day together. 

The two boys had been attached at the hip ever since then, never leaving each other. But now Eren was gone because of something stupid and it was all Armin’s fault. If he had just been more careful, kept his mouth shut, none of this would have happened. He and Eren would still be friends and talking. The brunette would probably have been by his side right now, joking about something or another and laughing. But he wasn’t, and Armin was so very lost. 

More and more days had passed and Armin’s mood just kept getting worse and worse. He almost didn’t realize just how many days had passed, but then the calendar would come up again and he would realize that Eren had been ignoring him for such a long time. He had almost passed out in history class, which was something that he knew was a bad idea. Falling asleep in Levi’s class was the absolute worst place, but he still did it. He had gotten scolded, something that he expected, but what he didn’t to be told to stay after class. 

He was a little nervous the rest of the class, and then it ended and he was still sitting in his seat as everyone left. Eren had looked his way, wishing him luck, one of the few things that he had said to Armin. He picked up his backpack and walked over to Levi’s desk, standing in front of it.

Levi looked up, “What’s been going on Arlert? The past couple weeks you’ve been off, dozing off during class, turning in work late, and your work has been slipping grade-wise.” 

Armin turned his eyes down to her shoes, he didn’t want to meet his teacher’s gaze. “I’m sorry, I’ll do better.” 

Levi sighed, “Kid I know that you’ll do better but what’s happening now. Ignoring this isn’t going to magically make anything better.” 

Armin tightly gripped his backpack straps, “Just, it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it messed you up this much. You’re a top student and as your teacher, I want what’s best for you.” 

He was surprised, this was the most that he had ever talked with his teacher, and it was a little crazy. “Sir, I don’t think that it’s that important.”

Levi looked up with a genuine look of concern, “If it seems unimportant to you,” it didn’t, “but you’re having such a downfall, then it probably is important. Is it about you and Jäger?” And there it was, of course, his teacher would figure it out. Everyone had figured it out and they were seeing how stupid he was being. All because his friend, his crush, had ignored him for a little bit of time. “Now, I know that something’s going on between you two. I don’t know what it is but it's hurting you. Jäger is a bit oblivious so you have to talk to him alright?”

“Alright… Thank you, Mr. Levi,” He took a deep breath and walked out of the classroom. These weeks were just getting weirder and weirder. 

*****************

Eren was walking towards Armin’s house. It was just after dinner time, and the sun was setting in the distance. His notebook was in hand and his laptop was in his backpack. It had taken him a bit longer than normal, but he had finally finished off a very special chapter. 

It was a fantastic chapter, fully colored and everything this time, it diverged a little from the main story but that was alright. The chapter before was dark and gruesome so he believed that to lighten the mood just a little that he would write something sweet for once. It wasn’t his forte but Eren thought that it came out alright. Now he was going to show it to Armin, just like he always did, he was always the first person to read them before they got published. Eren had been working night and day to get the chapter finished and he just couldn’t wait for his friend to read it. He was honestly a bit scared at what the boy’s reaction would be, hopefully, he wouldn’t be thrown out of the house, but he powered through. 

It wasn’t a long walk and before Eren knew it he was knocking on Armin’s front door. He was greeted by the boy’s grandfather. “Eren! I haven’t seen you in a while, how have you been?”

“I’ve been good, is Armin home?” Eren hoped that he was because he hadn’t been able to hang out with Armin in what felt like forever. After all, he had been working on his comic for so long. 

Armin’s grandfather’s expression fell a bit, “Yeah, he’s up in his room.” 

“Thank you!” He walked through the door and headed up the stairs. When he got to Armin’s room, the door was shut, which was normal for him, so Eren knocked. There was no response at first so he thought that maybe the boy was asleep or something. 

But then he heard shufflings behind the door, “Yeah Grandpa?” Eren laughed to himself, he guessed it had been a while since they had hung out, and it wasn’t like he texted Armin beforehand. 

“Nope, it’s Eren,” he heard footsteps coming from the other side of the door. Then the door had quickly opened before his eyes, Armin was standing in front of him. He didn’t look the best, the bags under his eyes had gotten worse and his eyes were red. The smile from Eren’s face fell, “You alright, kinda look a little worn out.” Worn out was such an understatement.

Armin finally seemed to register who was standing at the door, he pulled Eren into his room and shut the door behind them. Eren was dumbstruck the entire time, he had no clue what was happening. Armin took a deep breath and then turned around to face Eren, “What the hell! You disappear for weeks and then you show up like it’s nothing?!” 

This was not how Eren had expected it to go, he hadn’t realized that it had been that long. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been caught up with this comic that I didn’t realize that a lot of time had passed.” 

Armin laughed, the kind of laugh that you make when you simply can’t take it anymore. “Of course, it’s that comic. Eren I know that you love it and I do too, but seriously, we’ve barely talked at all!” 

Eren tried his best to take out his laptop, he needed to fix this quickly. The whole reason that he had been working so hard was it was for Armin. “Please read this, I’ve been working on this comic for a while and it's for you alright. It's super important and I wanted it to be perfect for you. I know I’ve been an ass but please.” 

There was a bit of silence between them before Armin finally spoke up. “Fine, I’ll read your new chapter.” Eren breathed out a breath of relief. Armin needed to read it, Eren had tried to get the guts to do this for the longest time and now it finally played into the main story of the comic so he thought that doing it this way would be the easiest for him. 

He handed the laptop to Armin, the two of them sat on the blonde’s bed. The entire time that Armin was reading he was watching the other boy’s reactions, it was a little terrifying if he was being honest. About ten minutes had passed, Armin had to be nearing that part of the chapter now, and that was when everything would hopefully become amazing and magical. 

Armin looked up from the screen, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Eren,” he looked up too, meeting Armin’s gaze.

“Uh, so what do you think?” He knew that was a stupid question but he was going to ask it anyway because right now any poetic words weren’t coming to his mind. 

Armin set aside the laptop, “Do you mean it, this isn’t some sick joke, you’re asking me?” 

Eren grabbed his hands and tried to calm himself down a bit. “Yes, Armin,” now was the time to find the right words, hopefully. “I know that we’ve been friends for a super long time and maybe it’s stupid of me to say this but I, I like you. So do you want to go out with me?” Eren braced himself for the worst.

He didn’t expect to feel Armin’s hands slip from his own and to get wrapped in the boy’s warm embrace, “You idiot, of course, I’d want to go out with you.” Eren wrapped his arms around the smaller boy, this was all he could have asked for. 

*****************

Armin was sitting at the top of the wall, having just woken up from one of the worst dreams he could have ever imagined. Sasha was laying next to him, mumbling something incoherent, he barely remembered what had happened. 

Bertholdt had transformed and then tried to destroy wall Maria again, and he had, he was supposed to be dead. Armin had bid time for Eren and forced Bertholdt to turn to bone. But he wasn’t dead and he was, somehow still alive. A jacket was around his shoulders, it wasn’t his own. 

Eren was running up to him, tears in his eyes, “Armin!” He collapsed in front of him and pulled Armin into his chest, “Thank god you’re alive,” Armin wrapped his arms around the boy. 

“I am, I’m freaking alive.” 

A few moments of quiet crying was shared between them. Eren placed his hands onto Armin’s face, holding it in his hands, “If you ever pull some shit like that ever again, I don’t know what I’ll do, but just don’t do that again.” 

“Alright Eren, you know that goes for you too. We’re both making it out of this alive. We’ll see the ocean together.” 

Eren leaned in closer, lips ghosting over Armin’s, “Yeah we’ll see the ocean together.” Armin didn’t realize what was happening at first but he soon caught on. They both closed their eyes, maybe out of fear but who knows, before finally meeting in the middle.

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with the idea of eren having a webcomic and then asking armin out through it. I didn't think that it would get his angsty but apparently that's all I can write. I also just watched season 4 of aot and now I'm really sad so I needed a pick me up. hope you all enjoyed :)


End file.
